


If By Chance You're Here Alone

by Obsessivecompulsivereadr



Series: When We Were Young series [3]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Abuse References, Addictive Behavior, Alcohol Abuse, Alcoholism, Angst, M/M, Manipulative Behavior, Michael is an unreliable narrator as well, Michael's POV, Trauma References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 15:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessivecompulsivereadr/pseuds/Obsessivecompulsivereadr
Summary: He didn’t know if reincarnation was a concept where he came from, but if it was, then he had to have done something horrible in a past life to deserve the hell that he’d experienced on Earth.  It seemed like every time he tried to have something good for himself, he either fucked it up on his own or it got taken from him.  There was no happy medium.





	If By Chance You're Here Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This has some pretty significant themes, and Michael's behavior isn't good for much of this. If there is something that I didn't warn for, that means I probably forgot to do it. Let me know, and I will tag anything that brings up issues. The mature rating is about those scenes and not about anything being sexually explicit.
> 
> Also, the relationship tag for Michael and Maria is missing for a reason. There is no reason for me to put that in their ship's searchable tag when the relationship presented isn't a good one.

Michael should have known nothing would be easy.  Nothing in his life ever had been.

He didn’t know if reincarnation was a concept where he came from, but if it was, then he had to have done something horrible in a past life to deserve the hell that he’d experienced on Earth.  It seemed like every time he tried to have something good for himself, he either fucked it up on his own or it got taken from him.  There was no happy medium. 

He either felt like he had it all for a short and idyllic period of time, like when 17-year-old Michael was wrapped around Alex Manes, or he had absolutely nothing.  And this chorus of Guerin’s greatest hits went all the way back to his childhood. 

All his life, he’d felt like the outcast.  He literally _was_ an outcast from his home planet, a refugee from a war he knew nothing about, and no matter how hard he tried, he was never good enough for _someone_.  He didn’t know what it was about him that had made the Evans family not want him, but he had never really gotten over that.  He’d always tried not to let Max and Isobel realize how much it had hurt, but he never seemed successful.  There was always something wrong with him in his foster homes and group homes.  Always a reason he was never chosen.  Always a reason why he was hated and abused.  He’d stopped trying to figure out why by the time he got to high school.  He’d played on his black sheep status throughout his adolescence and as an adult.  It was easier being the town’s trouble maker because nobody expected anything from him. 

If it came with always being underestimated and thrown aside, well, that’s what Michael had signed up for, so that’s what he got. 

Easy was supposed to get him through the past few months but Michael wasn’t just decompensating… he was spiraling downward faster than even he expected. 

Even with Max alive again, Michael couldn’t stop drowning. 

The dreams were the worst. 

He woke up screaming every single night.  Watched his mother die again _every single night_.   Watched Caulfield explode and take hundreds of innocent lives, all because of Michael’s impulsive tendencies.  If he had thought it through… if he had used his brain instead of his anger, he might have figured out a solution to deal with the prison in a way that would have saved everyone.  But because he didn’t think it through, he’d had to watch the prison explosion take his mother away from him, and it was _all his fault_. 

No, the dreams where his mother _and Alex_ died were the worst.

After two weeks of trying to sleep and being woken up by his own screaming, his voice cracking and throat sore from constant overuse and violent sobbing, he’d stopped trying to stay at Maria’s.  She tried to help him, tried to read him despite his stubborn interference, but after weeks of the dreams disturbing them both… of them scaring her without her getting a single explanation from him about what was going on, he’d learned that it was just better if he went on home each night.  She also didn’t appreciate how much more he drank, and he’d been quite heavy handed with his alcohol use long before the trauma of losing his mother had hit him. 

The acetone helped, even though it was only supposed to be used for physical pain.  It dulled his senses and sometimes helped with the constant ache in his hand, the healing that Max had done not doing a damn thing for the constant pain. 

He’d explained away the healing of his hand to Maria by telling her he’d gone back to the faith healer.  She didn’t believe it, and he didn’t blame her because it wasn’t even a well thought out lie.  He had years of experience lying about being an alien and he couldn’t even come up with a believable lie about his hand.  He should have told her that Valenti had convinced him to have it treated, and then he should have stayed out of sight for a while.  Hell, maybe he should have really let the hand be treated, years ago, and then maybe he wouldn’t have the phantom pains that kept him up at night.

He often wondered if Alex would know what to do about those pains… if Alex would know something that would help. 

Michael never asked though.  He just kept drinking because that was one thing he was good at.

When he combined the alcohol with the acetone, he had a shot at not feeling anything at all, and that was the only time anything was easy.  When he drank enough of both, he stopped dreaming, and then he didn’t have to watch Alex, or his mother, die again and again in his head.

Those dreams killed him.  He knew it hadn’t really happened, but night after night he heard Alex’s voice… “ _you are mine_ ,” and then he watched as Alex didn’t get out of the prison in time.  He watched as his mother _and_ Alex were taken from him. 

Michael got anxious every time he thought about Alex and his stand at Caulfield.  His refusal to leave without Michael, no matter what Michael said or did to push him away and force him to save himself.  It reminded Michael of how helpless he’d felt when they were teenagers, watching Alex be abused and feeling a loathing towards himself for not doing anything about it because of Max’s stupid rule about outing themselves. 

When he’d tried to help as a _human_ , it had shattered their relationship along with his hand. 

He'd wanted so much for Alex to just leave Michael behind at the prison.  He’d screamed at him to go.  To get out.  Screamed that Michael didn’t love him and that their relationship brought both of them nothing but pain.  Alex had seen through his excuses, his denial about loving him… though watching him cry had torn Michael to pieces. 

Alex _couldn’t_ die for him.  Michael wasn’t worth that kind of sacrifice.

Some nights the dreams were _good_ , but those were almost worse.  In those, he got time with his mother.  He got to share more of her memories, and he got to see what she thought of him as an adult.  He got to learn about his planet, but since it was just a dream he knew none of the details were real.  They were products of his desires and his theories about himself and his people.  In those dreams, he got to talk to her about Alex and about how fucked up everything was with him.  In some of those dreams, he got to look at Alex without the constant fear of him turning away from Michael.  After nights plagued with _those_ dreams, he woke up with a sense of loss that not even acetone and alcohol could numb.

Nothing was easy with Maria no matter what he tried. 

She felt guilty for being with him, and he couldn’t even justify it to her, to make her feel better about it, because he felt guilty too.  There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think of Alex, and she always noticed the sudden changes in his aura and in his feelings.  She could read him, but after the fourth or fifth time of asking her to stop, because she didn’t need to know what kind of chaos he had going on inside him, he finally got Isobel to teach him how to keep her out. 

She’d been strengthening her skills by practicing on Max, since he had the strongest psychic connection with Isobel.  Once she’d successfully booted him back out of her brain, culminating in accidentally throwing him across the room, much to Michael’s amusement, she felt sure that she would never go through what Noah had done to her ever again. 

It helped her, to give her a sense of power and control over her mind again, but it didn’t help treat the actual trauma.  She wouldn’t go to therapy.  So, Michael had asked her to teach him to do it, too… to both give her something else to focus on and to give him a way to keep Maria from reading him. 

If Maria ever wondered how he suddenly got so good at stonewalling her, she didn’t ask. 

Hell, maybe she didn’t even want to know anymore. 

He tried spending time with her away from the bar, and out of bed, but Michael always felt like he would suddenly run into Alex, and that was something he didn’t think he would survive.  She seemed to be afraid of it, too, but when she brought it up, he just got angry. 

He wasn’t angry at _her_ , and he made sure she knew that.  He was just angry. 

Other than when he was with Alex, when they were kids, he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t angry.  He associated the emotion with nearly every memory of his life, from the time he was left behind in the group home through to the day his mother died. 

If he hadn’t had Alex in his life for that brief time, and if he hadn’t had Max and Isobel, Michael was sure that the lifetime of anger would have made him just like Noah Bracken.  He felt a sickening sort of kinship with the man, even though he hated him for what he’d done to Isobel. 

And then Michael felt even more angry at himself for understanding _why_ Noah became what he was.  Why the years of isolation and trauma of hearing their people die, and then hearing nothing but silence for decades, had turned him into something twisted and evil, something willing to use anyone to get what he wanted.  Michael had watched another genocide at Caulfield, and it had destroyed him… so yeah… Michael got it. 

And knowing that he understood Noah made Michael hate himself even more. 

Michael’s anger was just getting worse now that Max was alive again.  He had been a pain in Michael’s ass even before he died, but now Max was even more determined to right wrongs that Michael felt they had no part of.  And it infuriated him that the one thing that they should have become involved in, finding their people, was the one thing Max refused to do. 

Max just wanted to move on, when Michael wanted vengeance. 

Isobel just wanted her sanity back, when Michael would be willing to let his mind _go_ if he could just stop feeling _so much_. 

If he could just have some peace.

Music sometimes helped quiet his mind, but the longer he went without drinking, the more miserable he felt, and then once he got to the point where even music didn’t work to sooth him, he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. 

Being with Maria didn’t help either, and he would love to say he didn’t know why but that wasn’t true.  She was fun, and he loved bantering with her, just like always, but there were times when his actions brought out the old Maria.  Brought out the woman who barely tolerated his presence and became irritated immediately at just the sight of him walking through the doors of the Wild Pony. 

It was his own fault because he _couldn’t_ be what she wanted him to be.  He didn’t know _how_ , and he wasn’t sure he even _wanted_ to be the kind of man _she_ wanted. 

He didn’t know what he needed, and he didn’t know how to tell her that without hurting her. 

So, he would tolerate her reaction when he drank so much that he passed out before he could even try to go home with her.  He’d always been a functioning alcoholic, and she had known that from the start since he did most of his lifetime of drinking right there in her mother’s bar, but the problem was that he wasn’t functioning anymore. 

She knew it.  And he knew it. 

She’d thrown away a lifelong friendship for a relationship with a spiraling, non-functioning alcoholic.

No wonder Maria was so mad at him all the time. 

He was mad at himself, too.

Alex wouldn’t talk to either one of them, and Michael couldn’t even blame him for it.  Liz pointed out to them at the Crashdown one day that Alex was avoiding them, and at first, he’d been surprised because Alex never avoided any uncomfortable situations with Michael.  He would seek them out, if only to get the last word in about something Michael had done wrong.

But then Liz had pointed out that the man Alex loved had moved on to Alex’s best friend and how that must feel to him, and Michael just… _died_ a little bit more inside. 

How had he forgotten that?  How had he missed that when he’d seen them together in high school?  They’d had conversations about how 17-year-old Alex had never felt at peace with anyone but Michael and Liz and… _Maria_.  He’d known it.  Just as he’d known about Isobel’s and Maria’s distaste for each other, and now about the complicated relationship between Maria, Isobel, and Rosa. 

Fuck…Michael really _was_ an asshole. 

He’d left the Crashdown that day alone. 

But he’d ended back up at the Wild Pony that same night. 

He sometimes wondered what Maria thought about his relationship with Alex.  If she ever thought about what they’d meant to each other.  It’s not like Michael ever gave her any clues, and he knew Alex wasn’t talking to her right now.  And he was sure that Alex had never given her any details about their past together.

He didn’t wonder hard enough to actually _ask_ her, because that would start a fight.  The harder he tried to avoid fighting, the more often he seemed to get drawn into it. 

But he wondered if she thought the connection was one-sided on Alex’s part.  If she’d only known the bare minimum and thought that there had been nothing of significance between them.  She’d mentioned once that she couldn’t understand Max’s lifetime obsession with Liz when they’d barely interacted as kids, and Liz had been dating Kyle for a pretty long time before Liz left town after high school.

Michael didn’t have it in him to try and explain, to tell her about how it seemed like the three of them, and maybe their entire species, only got to have _one_ great love in their lives, because then he’d have to delve into how Isobel’s had destroyed her, and how Max had resurrected Rosa to end his love’s pain, and there was too much trauma to unpack with all that, and that was without even getting into his history with Alex… when Maria didn’t even know the truth about them.  She would never understand any of it without knowing their secret.   

Sometimes he wanted to tell Maria about himself, but he always stopped himself because that didn’t seem fair to Alex.  He knew it was ridiculous, that _he_ was being ridiculous because what could he possibly owe Alex now? 

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it after the conversation with Alex in Michael’s bunker. 

About how if he was going to let any human destroy him, it might as well be Alex. 

He’d hated himself for years for never being honest with Alex, for letting the secret stay hidden from the one person who made him feel like he had a place on Earth.  The one person he could have used his powers to save, but hadn't. 

The one person he could stay on Earth for. 

It felt like a cop out to just blithely hand that information over to Maria when Alex had had to fight tooth and nail to get Michael to trust him.  Even now, everything Michael did came back to Alex Manes. 

The one human who kept him screwed up all the goddamn time. 

Maria had gone to see him a couple months ago, six weeks ago… something like that.  He had trouble keeping track of the days when he spent most of them drinking.  She didn’t tell him about it until she brought it up in the middle of an argument about how non-functioning he really was. 

He was blindsided by it, not by the argument but by the mention of Alex, and he couldn’t hide how desperate for information on Alex he really was.  He’d hurt her with the obvious interest… he knew he had even though she hadn’t said a thing about it. 

It had almost looked like pity in her eyes when she’d brought up that she thought Alex would never forgive them.  _Both of them_. 

He’d closed his eyes at the words.  It’s not like he’d expected anything different.  But it had still hurt. 

Everything still hurt.  It would always hurt. 

He wondered why Maria hadn’t just completely cut her losses at that point, but then he figured if she was going to give up her friendship with Alex, maybe she felt like she had to put in the maximum amount of effort on the thing she gave him up for.

Michael wasn’t even doing that for _her_ , and he knew it.  He _couldn’t_.  He knew it was because he hadn't even put in maximum amount of effort for Alex.  The only things he put a maximum amount of effort into these days were alcohol, acetone, and anger. 

No matter how many more times he ended up in the drunk tank at the jail, she would still let him back into the Pony whichever night Max let him out, and she would still let him crowd her against the bar.  Even when she shouldn’t.  Even when he shouldn’t try to convince her.  Even when convincing her solved nothing.

She stopped believing his apologies though.  He could see it. 

He was an asshole.  He always had been.  Probably always would be. 

Michael had never told her that he went to see Alex too.  Long after she did, and after the time he’d spend away from the other man, he figured it was much too late for him to fix anything with Alex.  He did it on a day he wasn’t drinking, only for him to find that Alex was drinking, too. 

He’d thought as he had the conversation that maybe they were both drowning. 

He hadn’t heard anything about Alex drinking more than usual, but then again, he’d never asked anybody about Alex.  So why would they tell him anything?

The catalyst had been finding out that Alex was working with Project Shepherd again.  Valenti had let it slip in conversation, and Michael had been worried that Alex was setting himself up for something that would cause both of them more harm. 

He’d used the news as an excuse.  He knew it.  _Alex_ had known it.

Michael had ached to see him so much, and he'd needed a reason to do it that wasn’t him admitting the truth.  But again, like always, Alex had seen right through him.  He tended to do that, and no matter how high the walls Michael threw up against him, Alex just systematically dragged them down into rubble at his feet. 

He made Michael feel vulnerable, but in turn, he could also see Alex’s pain.  When Alex had brought up Michael leaving him behind for Maria, Michael had had nothing to say to defend himself.  He tried, tried telling him that it was because he’d needed time, but the thing was that Alex _knew_ he was sabotaging himself, because Alex knew Michael oh so well.  He had called him out for not telling him about his decision, for just letting him sway in the wind while Michael played house, or tried to, with one of Alex’s best friends.

During that conversation, Alex had made it quite clear that he wouldn’t stand on the sidelines and watch Michael be with Maria.  That he wouldn’t do that to himself because it would kill him.  And it would kill Michael to watch Alex destruct that way. 

No matter what he did, someone always got hurt. 

A full week after their confrontation, Michael had approached Max and Isobel about detoxing himself from alcohol and acetone.  If he was going to think about what he wanted, what he needed, so that he could tell Alex… he needed to do it sober. 

Valenti had put him into a private outpatient situation that allowed the doctor to medically supervise the withdrawal period, without putting Michael in the hospital.  He might not have the same reactions to alcohol withdrawal symptoms that would kill a human, but withdrawal was still one of the most unpleasant situations he’d ever been through.  And none of them knew what completely detoxing off acetone would do to any of them.  He had been a complete ass to Valenti all the way through, despite knowing full well that the doctor was just trying to help him. 

Trying to get him to a stage where he could stop hurting everyone. 

Isobel shouting at him that after going through Max’s death, she couldn’t stand by and watch Michael kill himself also provided appropriate motivation for him.  So was her low blow of bringing up whether he would want Alex to see him that way.

For a few days after detox, and after he went to the first of these meetings Valenti recommended, he sat down and really talked to Maria.  He apologized for what he had put her through and told her that he would try this time.  He felt he owed it to her to give her more than just months of alcoholism and bullshit.  He stopped going to the Wild Pony, but that cut down on the amount of time he actually saw Maria, and when they talked, it was just as awkward as it had been before he’d plunged himself into the bottom of every bottle he could find.  It hadn’t helped that Michael could never forget that in some of his most desperate moments in detox… he’d asked for _Alex_. 

He didn’t know what that said about him, or if it would mean anything to either of them in the long run, but the fact that he’d asked for Alex… that had convinced him that he still loved Alex more than even _he_ had realized. 

So rather than waiting for Maria to cut ties with him, they broke up after a few weeks of half-hearted "trying" and attempted to make it amicable.  But he’d put Maria through a lot, and he didn’t blame her for not wanting to see him anymore.  She’d lost a lot when she got tangled up with him… lost a friendship for what probably would only ever amount to a no-good Texas rounder for her, and Michael’s behaviors hadn’t made her life any easier throughout the experience.

Nothing about what he’d done was fair to anybody.  Not even himself. 

 

 

He didn’t even know if Alex would agree to see him when he pulled back into the graveled drive sixty-eight days after their last conversation. 

Sixty-one days after he'd asked to go through detox. 

He’d left last time with a mission, a need to figure out how to survive everything.  How to survive himself. 

He’d left Alex's needing to make a decision that Alex could have worried about.  Could have dreaded. 

Alex’s car was in front of the cabin, but he wasn’t at the door.  He usually came out when anyone pulled up because he could hear any cars approaching well before they parked.  Michael leaned against the screen door frame for a few moments, to catch his breath and stop his limbs from shaking.  He would deserve it if Alex told him to leave.  Told him to not come back.  He deserved for both Alex and Maria to never want to have anything to do with him again. 

But he promised he’d be honest, and he’d promised Alex a conversation once he had taken space for himself and figured out what he needed. 

Alex must have been watching because he opened the door as soon as Michael knocked. 

He was gorgeous, and Michael swallowed down the panic clutching at his throat.  Alex had let his hair grow longer, and he was in a tight t-shirt reminiscent of their high school days, and he looked like everything Michael could ever want. 

He just wished he hadn’t taken so long to figure that out. 

“What are you doing here?” Alex asked quietly. 

“Am I too late?” Michael held his breath and waited, terrified that Alex would say yes and make him leave. 

Alex looked at him for a few moments, and Michael saw hope warring with trepidation in his eyes.  Like he wanted this visit to be Michael _finally_ getting his shit together, but he was too scared to hope for it. 

Alex cleared his throat.  “That depends on what you’re here for.”

Michael figured that was probably fair.  “I know what I want now.  What I need.  I figured it out just like you asked me to do.” 

Alex’s eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them away.  “You did, huh?”

Michael shifted and looked at him, glanced down at his lips because he always seemed to get distracted by the thought of kissing Alex, but then he looked back up again. 

“Yeah.  I did.  I’m not completely better, but I learned something recently that changed how I look at a lot of things.”

“What?” Alex leaned against the door but didn’t move to let Michael in. 

He figured that was probably fair too.

“I am not going to change decades of trauma in just a few months.  Maybe not even in a few years.  But I stopped drinking.  I got sober and really thought about things.”

Alex pressed his lips together and nodded.  “Yeah, I had to learn that the hard way, too.”

Michael huffed with amusement.  “Why didn’t you tell me Valenti put your dad into a coma?”

“It didn’t matter at the time,” Alex replied.  “Stop changing the subject.”

Michael rolled his eyes and smirked, “Still barking orders, Private?”

Alex sighed, but it didn’t seem to be because he was about to throw Michael out.  Of course, he hadn’t actually even let Michael through the door, yet.

Small steps.  One day… one moment… at a time.

“What did you come here to say, Michael?”

“You know what I realized a little while after I was here last time?”

Alex shook his head, “what?”

“That you didn’t call me _Guerin_ that day.  Not even when you were yelling at me.  I didn’t even realize it at the time.” 

He would find time to tell Alex later that he’d actually realized during his detox.  The thought had given him hope that Alex was still just as hung up on them as Michael was.

Alex didn’t comment.  He just raised an eyebrow. 

“I know what I want now.  What I’ve wanted for years.  What I will always want.”

Alex looked hopeful, and Michael would bet everything he owned, which wasn’t a lot, that it was the most beautiful expression on this, or any other, planet. 

“And what is that?” Alex whispered. 

“ _You_ ,” Michael said with a shrug.  “It’s always been you, and you know that.”

Alex let out a breath of relief, and if Michael hadn’t heard it, he would have never guessed Alex was nervous about his answer.  He would have figured that Michael coming here would have told Alex everything he needed to know.  But maybe he didn’t know Alex Manes as well as he’d always assumed.  Maybe Alex had always been right about them needing to get to know each other.

“I love you,” Alex said with a watery laugh.  “I’ve never stopped.” 

Michael let out a breath of his own.  “Can I come in?”

Alex nodded.  “We have to talk though.  This can’t be just sex.”

“I know,” Michael conceded.  “I want to start over with you, because there is never going to be anybody else for me, and I don’t want there to be.  I’m sorry I fought it for so long.”

Alex shrugged, like the struggle hadn’t almost destroyed them both, “I fought it, too.”

Alex stepped back and let Michael walk in but stopped him with a soft, sweet, kiss.  It wasn’t a promise of anything physical, or even sexual at all.  The only promise it held was that Alex loved him.  Loved him enough to try again.

Michael sank into it like he was coming home. 

Because he was. 

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written pretty much concurrently with Just In Case It Hasn't Gone, so I'm posting them together. The conversation between Alex and Maria, referenced here, took place in Like We Were Before We Realized.
> 
> They aren't really connected in any consecutive order, and they can all pretty much be read as standalones.
> 
> I think I've gotten S1 out of my system. Time will tell lol.


End file.
